When massive tsunami waves hit some of the most beautiful and densely populated coastal regions in South and Southeast Asia on the day after Christmas in 2004, the global response to visually powerful aid appeals in the international media was the largest in the history of humanitarian giving.
In the weeks that followed, over 500 INGOs arrived in the two regions most affected by the tsunami – Aceh, in Indonesia, and northeast Sri Lanka – and USD 13.5 billion was pledged and delivered by the international community for recovery.
Both Aceh and Sri Lanka had experienced cycles of low-intensity armed conflict and uncertain peace for decades. The unprecedented flow of international donor assistance into the former helped to catalyse the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding and the Aceh peace process that came into effect six months after the tsunami disaster.
Of course, initial contacts between the newly elected government of Indonesia and the separatist Gerekan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) had commenced prior to the disaster, via Finnish mediators. On the other hand, in Sri Lanka, while the tsunami disaster and international assistance contributed to initial rapprochement between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, the fraying Norwegian brokered peace process (2001-08) proved unsustainable. Why this stark difference?